Secretly tested for a year—has Avalanche become ICE's "anointed" tokenization chain?

Wenser

Odaily资深作者

@wenser2010

2026-09-24 14:52 (UTC+8)

This article is about 2093 words, reading the full article takes about 3 minutes

The next stop in the public chain race is tokenized securities—it's the minting rights of RWA.

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Core Viewpoint: ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, is evaluating Avalanche as the blockchain network for its tokenized securities platform. The two parties have already established a partnership but have not yet made a final confirmation. This move reflects the industry trend of traditional stock exchanges and public chains needing each other.
Key Elements:
1. ICE has continued testing Avalanche's technology over the past year. Its head of strategy said Avalanche "checks the boxes in many ways," but neither party has announced a mutual selection.
2. The three main reasons ICE chose Avalanche: strong technical capability (transaction costs of only $0.001–0.02), outstanding compliance advantages (support for embedding compliance rules at the protocol layer), and a wealth of mature use cases (covering institutional-grade projects in multiple countries including the U.S., South Korea, Japan, and the UAE).
3. In January of this year, the NYSE announced plans to launch a platform for tokenized trading and on-chain settlement of U.S. stocks and ETFs; in August, ICE invested in tZERO and made it a platform partner.
4. The U.S. SEC opened an innovation exemption policy for tokenized stock trading platforms, shifting the focus of public chain competition toward connecting to liquidity platforms in traditional financial markets.
5. The president of Ava Labs expects that within the next year, some securities trading venues will offer 24-hour trading services on business days.
6. Traditional exchanges tend to connect to mature public chains rather than build their own networks, while public chains seek to break through the ceiling of the crypto-native market, creating complementary demand between the two sides.

Original | Odaily (@OdailyChina)

Author | Wenser (@wenser 2010)

Will Avalanche become the official tokenized blockchain network for ICE, the parent company of the NYSE?

Last week, Ava Labs President Cooper stated publicly that the NYSE has spent the past year testing Avalanche technology and evaluating feasible paths for integrating it into its existing trading systems. The two parties have already established a partnership, but the NYSE has not yet finalized whether to select Avalanche as the blockchain for its tokenized securities platform. ICE, for its part, says the two sides are working closely together and that the Avalanche chain meets multiple requirements, though neither party has announced a mutual selection.

In January of this year, the NYSE announced plans to launch a platform for tokenized trading and on-chain settlement of US stocks and ETFs. In August, ICE, the NYSE's parent company, also invested in tZERO and made it a platform partner.

As the US SEC opens up its innovation exemption policy for tokenized stock trading platforms, a new round of competition among public chains is shifting toward integration with liquidity trading platforms in traditional financial markets.

Why ICE Has Its Eye on Avalanche: Technical Strength, Compliance Advantages, and Mature Use Cases

At the Avalanche Summit held last week, Michael Blaugrund, Head of Strategic Initiatives at ICE, said the company has "maintained close contact" with the Avalanche team during its evaluation of blockchain platforms, and that "Avalanche meets our requirements in many respects."

Based on the available information, there are three main reasons why the Avalanche chain has become a "potential partner" for ICE:

First, the strong technical capabilities that the Avalanche chain has accumulated.

As a long-established public chain, Avalanche has built up considerable expertise in public chain performance, institutional wallet support, interoperability, and connectivity with existing securities infrastructure. Its average transaction cost is also extremely low, typically around $0.001–$0.02.

Second, the compliance advantages of the Avalanche chain.

Beyond the inherent advantage of being a US-based company, unlike other open public chains, the Avalanche chain allows institutions to embed compliance rules directly at the protocol level while retaining interoperability with the broader ecosystem. Relevant features include user and transaction whitelisting, validator permission controls, contract deployment controls, isolation and self-sovereign control, the Evergreen institutional framework, and a balance between privacy and auditability. Simply put, institutions can adopt it flexibly while meeting regulatory compliance requirements. The Avalanche token-related ETFs and exchange spot products previously launched by VanEck, Bitwise, Grayscale, and others are also a reflection of its rigorous compliance standards.

Third, the mature use cases of the Avalanche chain.

The Wyoming stablecoin, the California DMV vehicle ownership system, the first Korean won-backed stablecoin KRW1 launched by South Korean crypto asset custody provider BDACS, the multi-token platform built on Avalanche by Japanese payment giant TIS, the UAE PASS digital identity system built on Avalanche by the UAE, the $2.7 billion in assets tokenized on-chain by Japanese security token platform Progmat, and the tokenized securities platform built on Avalanche by Hanwha Investment & Securities — all run on the Avalanche chain and meet local regulatory requirements. In terms of existing mature use cases, Avalanche's track record is remarkable.

The Path of Collaboration Between Stock Exchanges and Public Chains: Mutual Need, Not a Question of Who Is Stronger

At the same event, Ava Labs President Cooper stated that he expects some securities trading venues to begin offering 24-hour trading services on weekdays within the next year.

"Will it be the major exchanges? The largest stock exchanges in the world? Like the London Stock Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange? I'm not sure about that," he said. "There are quite a few smaller securities trading venues that are making a strong case for their appeal globally to attract liquidity."

It is clear that, to some extent, bringing in public chain networks and launching tokenized platforms has become a consensus among many stock exchanges. After all, building a blockchain network from scratch involves not only technical challenges and time costs, but also lacks the incremental opportunities that come with integrating into a mature blockchain network ecosystem. Even a well-known brokerage platform like Robinhood chose not to build its own blockchain network from the ground up, but instead launched Robinhood Chain — now supported by both "RWA assets + meme coins" — based on the technical foundation of an Ethereum ecosystem L2 network.

For many public chain networks, the comfort zone of the crypto-native market can no longer support more ambitious visions and longer-term development. To further gain more users, trading volume, and ecosystem-building projects, they can only seek transformation and cooperation with larger systems. Traditional stock exchanges are naturally their best choice.

This is especially true for top US stock exchanges like the NYSE and Nasdaq, whose trading volume, liquidity, and user market represent a massive prize that crypto blockchain networks covet. In the near future, as stock tokenization platforms pass regulatory review, the settlement and trading network ultimately chosen by traditional stock exchanges will achieve leapfrog development with the backing of their brand endorsement. By comparison, the various in-ecosystem TVL figures currently tracked in the crypto market pale in significance.

Compared with past narratives such as ETF applications and publicly listed treasury companies, the next institutional-grade narrative that drives the crypto industry's development may only be determined by the partner systems introduced by traditional stock exchanges. This will advance in tandem with regulatory reforms led by the US SEC, CFTC, and other agencies, ushering in a second growth curve for the crypto market and truly opening up a trillion-dollar explosion of market scale.